Stalls in idle loop

[Nick Matsakis <matsakis merl com>]

I'm having a problem with a GTK-based application.  Simply, I have written
a program which makes extensive use of an idle function, installed with
gtk_idle_add().  Periodically, for no apparent reason, the GTK main loop
ceases to run the idle function. Moving the mouse, pressing a key on the
keyboard, or otherwise sending an event to the program causes the idle
loop to be run again.  My questions, therefore, are:

1) Is this a known problem? 
2) Is there an elegant solution? 
3) If not, is there an inelegant solution?  My one thought is to send some
  sort of "null event" at the end of the idle loop, ensuring that there is
  always an event in the queue whenever the idle loop ends.  I don't know
  why that might work, but it seems to me that if moving the mouse fixes
  the problem, this might too. 
4) On a related note, is there a bug list for GTK on the web somewhere? I
  couldn't find one.

Nick Matsakis